Cultural gaps and class maps: decoding entrepreneurial creativity in cross-cultural contexts

Purpose Research on the entrepreneurially productive role of cross-cultural experience continues to grow. A consensus is emerging that interactions with foreign cultural elements can cultivate a range of aptitudes central to new venture ideation and opportunity development. Building from recent studies that place the social and psychological “experience of foreignness” as a fundamental driver of these entrepreneurial effects, I introduce the concept of creative entrepreneurial deviance as a generalized constructive outcome of entrepreneurs’ cross-cultural experience. Design/methodology/approach This conceptual paper introduces the idea of creative entrepreneurial deviance as a higher-order outcome of entrepreneurs’ accumulated cross-cultural experiences. Creative entrepreneurial deviance is grounded in the premise that spotting differences between cultures from an outsider lens induces cultural arbitrage frames (i.e. being able to spot profitable gaps between contexts). However, knowledge gaps remain surrounding how the backgrounds of entrepreneurs who engage in cross-cultural experiences can play divergent roles in yielding such benefits. This study addresses this fact and contributes by integrating currently disconnected insights on social class backgrounds. Findings This paper draws on an analytic-holistic cognition theory to develop a typology linking the role of entrepreneurs’ national cultural cognitive style with their social class background cognitive style; arguing that they combine in ways that bolster (attenuate) outsider insights in distinct ways. Implications for future research and practice are discussed. Originality/value This paper directly extends the growing conversations in entrepreneurship on the constructive role of cross-cultural experience. It does so by incorporating the literature on social class backgrounds and theorizing how this added component of felt outsidership within cross-cultural experiences can bolster or attenuate tendencies for creative entrepreneurial deviance in general; with implications for a wide range of stakeholders.